Will America build new nuclear reactors?

President Obama announced Tuesday that he approved a loan guarantee to underwrite construction of two new nuclear reactors in Georgia. These would be the first new reactors built in the United States since the 1970s. Will this be the start of a new wave of nuclear energy in this country?

Garry Golden, futurist and blogger for The Energy Roadmap, doesn’t believe so. Nuclear energy is just too expensive to build, he says, for there to be substantial new development. Those in Burke County, Ga., where the new reactors will be built, are very happy with the announcement, according to Waynesboro Mayor George Deloach. Mayor Deloach says this new plant could mean many new jobs for Burke County’s people in a county with an unemployment rate above 10 percent.